Polymerization in Carbone: A Novel Method for the Synthesis of More Sustainable Electrodes and Their Application as Cathodes for Lithium–Organic Energy Storage Materials Based On Vanillin

Abstract

Sustainable energy storage materials are needed to implement necessary transitions to a more sustainable society. Therefore, we present novel vanillin (and thus ultimately possibly lignin)-derived electrode materials for lithium-ion-based energy storage systems. In the present approach, vanillin is first modified in two sustainable steps to afford bisvanillonitrile (BVN). The precursor materials for the electrodes are made from BVN and carbon black and are subsequently treated in the atmosphere of triflic acid in order to polymerize BVN. Used as a cathode material in a lithium-ion-based energy storage device, the resulting material shows capacities up to 90 mAh g −1 (respective to the whole electrode mass). This extraordinary performance can be attributed to a combination of non-Faradaic and Faradaic charge storage involving quinone units, which are abundantly found in the polymer backbone. In contrast to conventional organic electrode materials, excellent contact to carbon as a conductive additive is established by performing the polymerization in a mixture with carbon (in carbone), allowing the omission of additional unsustainable binder materials. Due to the sustainable synthesis and good performance, such sustainable electrodes may be applied in future energy storage devices.

Interplay of Porosity, Wettability, and Redox Activity as Determining Factors for Lithium–Organic Electrochemical Energy Storage Using Biomolecules

“…As no significant irreversible oxidation peak is observed in a distinct early CV cycle (Figure S9 a and b), unlike in the case of similar polymers in aqueous systems (Figure S9 c), we conclude that demethylation requires several charge–discharge cycles in a lithium half‐cell setup. Irreversible oxidation, which usually results in diminishing capacity with prolonged cycling, is common in organic battery materials . Notably, C/P‐van reaches constant capacity after approximately 10 charge–discharge cycles.…”

“…Irreversible oxidation, which usually results in diminishing capacity with prolonged cycling, is common in organic battery materials. [18] Notably,C /P-van reachesc onstant capacity after approximately 10 charge-discharge cycles. After the maximum was reached, the capacity was constantf or 50 charge-discharge cycles,i nc ontrast to the case of C/P-o for whicht he capacity decreases slowly immediately after it reached the maximum.…”

“…PEDOT constitutes the majority of the electrode, which limits the sustainability of such am aterial. [16] In polymer-based electrodes, redox-active polymers are always mixed with conductive additives such as carbon nano-tubes, [17] porous carbons, [9,10,15,18] and conductive polymers, [3,19] all of which contributes ignificant capacitive energy storage. Both cyclic voltammograms and galvanostaticm easurements of the mixed cathode materials are used to show influences of both distinct redox-activeg roups (high current only at distinct voltages in cyclic voltammetry and plateau-like galvanostatic behavior) and capacitive behavior (rectangular cyclic voltammogram and triangularg alvanostatic curve).…”

Sustainable Cathodes for Lithium‐Ion Energy Storage Devices Based on Tannic Acid—Toward Ecofriendly Energy Storage

“…The average redox potential is 3.4 V (vs Li/Li + ), which is relatively high compared to conventional organic materials [ 10 ] and outstanding when compared to other electrodes from waste biomass, [ 30 ] although similar to other cathodes utilizing catecholic groups (Table S3, Supporting Information). [ 15,31,32 ]…”

Sustainable Battery Materials from Biomass

“…recently immobilized it on a chitosan backbone, whereby it demonstrated general suitability as a cathode material . The authors furthermore polymerized it without chitosan and built a crosslinked redox‐active network with applicability as a cathode material in lithium‐ion batteries …”